Hella Fans Caframo Fans Brushless Fans

[cat man do]

Looking for some fans and am rather shocked at the price of a cheap looking chunk of plastic here in Australia with Hellas and caframo in excess of $100 each.

Looking on the west marine catalogue and saw the comment

Comments about 12V & 24V Turbo Fans:

I have burned out six or seven of these fans all due to wearing between brushes and armature. The evidence of failure is a rattling, but if you disassemble the fan and break open the motor case, you will see the root cause.

These fans are designed to a 5,000 hour life. If you run the fan between 5 and 10 hours a day, 200 days a year (reasonable for full-time cruising in warm to hot climates) then this is a 2 to 4 year fan.

Contrast this with the design life of brushless fans of the type used to cool electronic gear. For between $15 and $30 you can buy a fan of similar capacity (100 to 130 CFM) with a design life in excess of 50,000 hours, which would be a 20 to 40 year fan under the same use conditions.
HELLA MARINE 12V & 24V Turbo Fans at West Marine

and was wondering, has anybody tried it out?
They are cheap, they are certainly quiet, but do they shove out the air?
Jumbo 190 to 360mm Fans : Performance-PCs.com, ... sleeve it and they will come

[cat man do]

According to Hella, their fans push out 95 litres/second or 198cfm

some of the high volume computer fans appear better.

This smallish one pushes out 271.76 cfm



Item # G1751H12BALB1-5, 172x150x51mm 12V DC Fan on Pelonis Technologies, Inc.

[Lagoon4us]

Make up a nice flared plastic or GRP moulding, simple and ATTRACTIVE in white silver or matt black Engineer it under SNAFU principles where we can simply clip in a new unit, have only two wires to it so we can remote switch from our pillowside and i'll buy 6 now!!!!

[impi]

We run a number of fan brands on our boat. Originally all were hellas and when reading some comments on CF I went and purchased a few brands ADDING them to my existing ones. My conclusion ... I will stick with Hella anytime ... they are by far the best I have seen!

[cat man do]

Originally Posted by impi

We run a number of fan brands on our boat. Originally all were hellas and when reading some comments on CF I went and purchased a few brands ADDING them to my existing ones. My conclusion ... I will stick with Hella anytime ... they are by far the best I have seen!

So you reckon I should jump on a pair if less than $100 delivered?
Having a tough time pulling the trigger for what is after all, a plastic friggen fan.

[impi]

Originally Posted by cat man do

So you reckon I should jump on a pair if less than $100 delivered?
Having a tough time pulling the trigger for what is after all, a plastic friggen fan.

Yeah, they do sound expensive ... I prefer to buy something that works really well for me and I struggle with heat ... just find my old Hella fans are keeping me cooler

[cat man do]

Video here of a big case fan, $12 to buy
Is that air volume at the end similar to the hella?

NZXT FN-200RB 200mm Case Fan Review - YouTube

[Nemo55]

Its not just being brushless,,its whether or not they run on bearings. I'll take a Fan which runs on bearings over bushings any day of the week.
They last longer and are can be serviceable.

[cat man do]

Originally Posted by Nemo55

Its not just being brushless,,its whether or not they run on bearings. I'll take a Fan which runs on bearings over bushings any day of the week.
They last longer and are can be serviceable.

Decent computer fans do have bearings
The one above certainly does (rifle bearings)

[Factor]

Dave

where did you se them for $12? Ebay has them at $30. I am about to embark on a project of putting fans in Dilligara

[jcapo]

SVhotwire sells a computer fan in a housing for $64.95.

svhotwire.com

A friend says they are great fans. A DIY fan should not be that difficult.

John

[neptunesjester]

I have installed the Hella fans in my boat. I run the two in the aft stateroom 24/7 for air circulation. They move a lot of air quietly, with a power draw that is so negligible, I don't even consider them a draw. However, I second the failure point is the brushes. Due to the constant running, I wear out a pair every year. I just swapped one out last weekend and plan to take the old one to an electric motor shop to see what it costs to replace the brushes.

Later,
NJ

[belizesailor]

Never been very impressed with the Hella product personally. They are expensive and, relatively speaking, move less air. I did a comparison years ago (long since lost) of the various fans on the market based upon the CFM's they move according to manufacturers specs (surprisingly hard to find for some). The Caframo fans really stood out -- so I have these installed on my boat. Quite reliable too. I installed in 2004 and just last year had to replace a couple.

Of course, this was before West Marine discovered them. They were only being sold in the RV market. I think I paid about $20US a piece for them. You may still can find some at lower prices in the RV market.

[Therapy]

For the cost I would think it would be worth a try.

Even making a bracket for it could not be that hard.

[slowshoes]

Originally Posted by belizesailor

Never been very impressed with the Hella product personally. They are expensive and, relatively speaking, move less air. I did a comparison years ago (long since lost) of the various fans on the market based upon the CFM's they move according to manufacturers specs (surprisingly hard to find for some). The Caframo fans really stood out -- so I have these installed on my boat. Quite reliable too. I installed in 2004 and just last year had to replace a couple.

Of course, this was before West Marine discovered them. They were only being sold in the RV market. I think I paid about $20US a piece for them. You may still can find some at lower prices in the RV market.

I second what belizesailor says about Caframos. The West Marine by me has most of the fans they sell set up in the store so you can actually see for yourself how much air each model fan moves. Caframos are far better the Hella's, and the Caframo fan that moves the most air is the 747.

Some folks don't like the fact that the 747's don't have a cage, but when it's a hot, calm night, give me the fan that moves the most air. I bought six.